Category: Thinking Clearly

Mistakes Aren’t Mistakes

Published on June 20, 2024

In martial arts, mistakes aren’t deviations from the training—they’re a fundamental component of it.

In other words, learning how to recover from mistakes is just as important as learning how to properly punch and kick in the first place.

The reason is because in self-defense—one of the fundamental focuses of any martial art—there are no do-overs. You don’t get to ask your attacker to stop and re-attack you because you made a mistake doing your self-defense or you weren’t ready.

The self-defense must go on. Your thinking must carry on. Your movement must flow on.

And if that’s the end goal, then that has to be the way in which we practice—because the way we practice IS the way we’re going to perform.

And so it is in life.

Mistakes aren’t deviations from the path—they’re a necessary part of the path.

They’re opportunities for us to learn how to think quickly on our feet… to look for openings in unexpected circumstances…to practice being calm and collected even when we’re flustered or confused.

We learn to roll with the punches, both in martial arts and in life, because fighting is never perfect. It’s messy, ugly, and surprising… and preparing for THAT—practicing when it IS that—is preparing for life.

Preparing for perfect is planning for fantasy. And planning for fantasy is the REAL mistake.

Success The World Actually Needs

Published on June 19, 2024

The world is saturated with people who want to be successful.

But what the world needs isn’t more people who are successful via traditional metrics (e.g. money, fame, power).

What the world needs is more people who are successful via novel and highly personal metrics.

The world doesn’t need more people maximizing their bottom lines at the expense of the environment. What we need are more people who can minimize their carbon footprint, reduce their use of plastics, and align their purchasing behavior with a life mission that’s also aligned with our most important home.

The world doesn’t need more people obsessing over likes and numbers of views on social media. What we need are more people who are obsessed with liking themselves and minimizing the number of people they compare themselves to—both on and offline.

The world doesn’t need more generally educated, non-specific college grads. What we need are more people who have come alive and are ignited with a curiosity that makes them want to learn, grow, and improve each day in spite of mistakes, failures, and hardships along the way.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with traditional metrics of success per se.

…It’s just that there’s something way more right with personally defined, soul-aligned metrics instead.

Inner Work Prompt: What’s your personally defined, soul-aligned definition of success?

The Magic Of Slow

Published on June 18, 2024

One trick that’s been helping me get things done more smoothly… is doing them more slowly.

…Which might sound counter culture (busy and fast is the modern day way) and might feel like it goes against your inclinations—and that’s because it probably does… and it is.

Hear me out…

When it’s time to get up out of bed… rather than try to jump up and quickly get on to the first task of the day… I rise calmly.

When it’s time to get my workout sets in… rather than try and finish each rep as quickly as possible… I try to bring in the fire more slowly.

When I have to get three things done all at once… rather than try and get all three done at the same time… I’ll focus more carefully on the most important one of the three only.

I’ve been surprised at how effective this mindset shift has been for me and I think you might be, too.

It works because it gets you started. It works because it prevents you from making rash mistakes (and having to fix or redo). It works because it keeps you more focused… more joyful and in an overall better state to perform… more absorbed in the now.

…Which is where all the magic for getting things done ever resided anyway.

P.s. In case you missed it, you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week, here.

On Luxury

Published on June 16, 2024

I think about the debt I’ve avoided…

I think about the tens of thousands of dollars I’ve saved…

I think about the people I’ve repelled and the ones I’ve attracted…

I think about the time I’ve saved, the space I’ve created, and the contentment I’ve cultivated…

And I think about how one of the best decisions I ever made was that I didn’t need luxury in order to live my best life.

P.s. I also published: A Motivational Excerpt From Tom Brady’s Hall Of Fame Speech—”You Don’t Have To Be Special…”

Why Do Martial Arts Forms / Patterns?

Published on June 12, 2024

In Tae Kwon-Do, we practice forms—traditionally constructed and precise patterns of moves—for a variety of reasons.

To the untrained eye, one might wonder what their purpose is… here’s a traditional form I performed in 2015 for context.

…They certainly don’t look like moves you might use to defend yourself. Which, as most people might understand it, should be one of the primary goals of training in martial arts.

To which I’d say it is… and that they actually are… moves to help you learn to do exactly that.

…The translation just isn’t literal.

In the same way an allegory is a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning… forms are carefully constructed (artistic) patterns of moves that are densely saturated with hidden meaning.

…Which makes them one of the most important mediums through which our art’s sacred lessons are handed down from one generation of martial artists to the next.

To those who look at and judge it by what they see on the surface… the lessons will forever remain a mystery.

But, to those who humble themselves enough to become a practitioner and try… and learn… and experiment… will slowly… slowly… reveal a world dense with knowledge and lessons that will forever change how they engage with the art and mystery of life.

Today’s inner work prompt is this: what’s something you only understand superficially that you’d like to get to know more deeply? Be it a spiritual text, a culturally rich form of movement, or even yourself… pick something, block out some reoccurring time for it, and begin to explore.

There’s far more than what’s on the surface.

The Worst Awning Creaking

Published on June 9, 2024

I have a metal awning covering the front door of my house.

It has been making an awful creaking noise whenever the wind picked up for the past few weeks.

It’s definitely not new and is something my mind started budgeting for as soon as I started hearing the screech. I figured I would first budget time to see if it was something I could fix myself. I could call over my handyman dad and see if whatever was loose could get tightened and we could clean her up—leaving her good as new.

If that didn’t work, I figured I would budget money for a new one and I started thinking about different colors and styles I might choose to replace it.

This went on and on in the background of my mind since I started noticing the reoccurring sound several weeks ago.

It wasn’t until I actually went outside today and took a closer look that I realized all of that horrible creaking… and screeching… and reoccurring annoyance…

…Was from one singular, oh-so-tiny bush branch—no bigger than my pinky—that was rubbing up against the front of the awning in such a way and at such an angle that it made that obnoxious noise.

I reached up, broke off the branch, and voila… problem solved.

How often is it the case that we do silly things like this? Make something oh-so-tiny into something way bigger than it needed to be? Something that could’ve been solved at the outset with a little up front investigation and energy… but got delayed and blown out of proportion instead…

Oh, how much energy I (we) could have saved…

Problem Solving Like A Gardener

Published on June 6, 2024

An inner work exercise: pick a problem, any problem, you’re facing in your life right now… write it down.

Inquire as to whether the problem is being caused by a deeper rooted problem or if that problem is the core problem that can’t be traced any deeper.

If it can be traced deeper, write down that bigger problem and continue until you get to the core.

Next, move in the opposite direction, start at the core problem and string together all of the additional problems that one root problem is causing—creating a roots-of-a-tree looking diagram.

Continue until all of your ideas are exhausted.

Then… study that diagram. Look closely at the impact of that one root problem. Imprint that impact on your mind. Let it soak deeply into your conscious awareness.

Continue this inquisition by imagining, like a gardener tending to the weeds of a garden, how this problem will respond if you remove or “solve” one of the superficial layers… visualize how, with the root still in tact, it’ll just grow back and manifest itself equally, if not stronger, than before.

Then, visualize how the problem will respond when you remove or “solve” the core problem… visualize how, like a weed being yanked out in full, all of the connected problems will be solved, too.

Finish by mentally repossessing all of the energy you normally devote to the solving of superficial layer problems, and vow to unleash ALL of that repossessed energy on the root problem itself.

Sometimes, we feel overwhelmed and outnumbered—not because of the number of problems per se—but, because of our lack of focus on root problems vs superficial problems.